scholarly journals What we talk about when we talk about colors

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (39) ◽  
pp. e2109237118
Author(s):  
Colin R. Twomey ◽  
Gareth Roberts ◽  
David H. Brainard ◽  
Joshua B. Plotkin
Keyword(s):  
Visible Light ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Color Space ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Inference Algorithm ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Different Color

Names for colors vary widely across languages, but color categories are remarkably consistent. Shared mechanisms of color perception help explain consistent partitions of visible light into discrete color vocabularies. But the mappings from colors to words are not identical across languages, which may reflect communicative needs—how often speakers must refer to objects of different color. Here we quantify the communicative needs of colors in 130 different languages by developing an inference algorithm for this problem. We find that communicative needs are not uniform: Some regions of color space exhibit 30-fold greater demand for communication than other regions. The regions of greatest demand correlate with the colors of salient objects, including ripe fruits in primate diets. Our analysis also reveals a hidden diversity in the communicative needs of colors across different languages, which is partly explained by differences in geographic location and the local biogeography of linguistic communities. Accounting for language-specific, nonuniform communicative needs improves predictions for how a language maps colors to words, and how these mappings vary across languages. Our account closes an important gap in the compression theory of color naming, while opening directions to study cross-cultural variation in the need to communicate different colors and its impact on the cultural evolution of color categories.

scholarly journals What we talk about when we talk about color

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin R. Twomey ◽  
Gareth Roberts ◽  
David Brainard ◽  
Joshua B. Plotkin
Keyword(s):  
Visible Light ◽  
Color Space ◽  
Color Perception ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Inference Algorithm ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Different Color

Names for colors vary widely across languages, but color categories are remarkably consistent [1–5]. Shared mechanisms of color perception help explain consistent partitions of visible light into discrete color vocabularies [6–10]. But the mappings from colors to words are not identical across languages, which may reflect communicative needs – how often speakers must refer to objects of different color [11]. Here we quantify the communicative needs of colors in 130 different languages, using a novel inference algorithm. Some regions of color space exhibit 30-fold greater demand for communication than other regions. The regions of greatest demand correlate with the colors of salient objects, including ripe fruits in primate diets. Using the mathematics of compression we predict and empirically test how languages map colors to words, accounting for communicative needs. We also document extensive cultural variation in communicative demands on different regions of color space, which is partly explained by differences in geographic location and local biogeography. This account reconciles opposing theories for universal patterns in color vocabularies, while opening new directions to study cross-cultural variation in the need to communicate different colors.

scholarly journals Delving Deeper Into Color Space

i-Perception ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 204166951879206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmina Jraissati ◽  
Igor Douven
Keyword(s):  
Color Space ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Basic Color ◽  
Basic Color Terms

So far, color-naming studies have relied on a rather limited set of color stimuli. Most importantly, stimuli have been largely limited to highly saturated colors. Because of this, little is known about how people categorize less saturated colors and, more generally, about the structure of color categories as they extend across all dimensions of color space. This article presents the results from a large Internet-based color-naming study that involved color stimuli ranging across all available chroma levels in Munsell space. These results help answer such questions as how English speakers name a more complex color set, whether English speakers use so-called basic color terms (BCTs) more frequently for more saturated colors, how they use non-BCTs in comparison with BCTs, whether non-BCTs are highly consensual in less saturated parts of the solid, how deep inside color space basic color categories extend, or how they behave on the chroma dimension.

Color, Color Terms, Categorization, Cognition, Culture: An Afterword

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 487-495
Author(s):  
Don Dedrick
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Basic Color ◽  
Basic Color Terms

AbstractRecent work on color naming challenges the idea that there are shared perceptually salient colors or color categories that are "hardwired" into homo sapiens and provide the basis for one of the most famous cross-cultural claims of all time, Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's claim that there is a small number of "basic" color terms (eleven), and that some subset of these terms is present in every human language (Berlin & Kay, 1969; see Kay and Maffi, 1999; Kay and Reiger, 2003; and Kay 2005 for updates).

From Color Naming to a Language Space: An Analysis of Data from the World Color Survey

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 173-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bimler
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Consensus ◽  
Quantitative Index ◽  
Stimulus Set ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
The World ◽  
Standard Set ◽  
Linguistic Evolution

AbstractThe World Color Survey was a large-scale cross-cultural experiment in which informants used the color lexicons of 110 non-written languages to label a standard set of stimuli. Here those data are explored with a novel analysis which focuses on the averaged location of boundaries within the stimulus set, revealing the system of color categories native to each language. A quantitative index of inter-language similarity was defined, comparing these average boundaries. Analyzing the similarities among color-naming patterns led to a 'language space', in which languages are grouped into clusters according to linguistic families (i.e., descent from common ancestors). This implies that each language's departures from the cross-cultural consensus about color categories are systematic (non-random). Given the non-unanimity about the color lexicon within languages, the persistence of these language families across the course of linguistic evolution is paradoxical.

scholarly journals The Acquisition of Color Words

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Barner
Keyword(s):  
Visible Light ◽  
Color Word ◽  
Color Perception ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Color Properties ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Word Boundaries ◽  
Different Color

Our experience of color results from a complex interplay of our perceptualand linguistic systems. At the lowest level of perception, our visualsystem transforms the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectruminto a rich 3D experience of color. Despite our ability to discriminatemillions of different color shades, most languages categorize color intodiscrete color categories. Perception provides constraints on the likelylocations of color word boundaries but does not fully define color wordmeanings. Once acquired, although language likely does not influence thelowest levels of color perception, language does influence our memory andprocessing speed of color. One approach to examining the relationshipbetween perception and language in forming our experience of color is tostudy children as they acquire color language. Children produce color wordsin speech for many months to years before acquiring adult-like meanings forcolor words. Research in this area has focused on whether children’sdifficulties stem from 1) an inability to identify color properties as alikely candidate for words meanings or alternatively 2) inductive learningof language specific color word boundaries. Supporting the first account,there is evidence that children more readily attend to object traits likeshape rather than color as likely candidates for word meanings; however,children seem to have successfully identified color a candidate for wordmeaning before they begin to produce color words in speech. There is alsoevidence that pre-linguistic infants, like adults, perceive colorcategorically. While these perceptual categories likely constrain themeanings that children consider, they cannot fully define color wordmeanings because languages vary in both the number of location of colorword boundaries. Recent evidence suggests that the delay in color wordacquisition primarily stems from an inductive process of refining theseboundaries.

Culture and Cognition: What is Universal about the Representation of Color Experience?

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 293-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Jameson
Keyword(s):  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Interpoint Distance ◽  
Color Processing ◽  
Color Experience ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Distance Model ◽  
Color Categorization ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

AbstractExisting research in color naming and categorization primarily reflects two opposing views: A Cultural Relativist view that posits color perception is greatly shaped by culturally specific language associations and perceptual learning, and a Universalist view that emphasizes panhuman shared color processing as the basis for color naming similarities within and across cultures. Recent empirical evidence finds color processing differs both within and across cultures. This divergent color processing raises new questions about the sources of previously observed cultural coherence and cross-cultural universality. The present article evaluates the relevance of individual variation on the mainstream model of color naming. It also presents an alternate view that specifies how color naming and categorization is shaped by both panhuman cognitive universals and socio-cultural evolutionary processes. This alternative view, expressed, in part, using an Interpoint Distance Model of color categorization, is compatible with new empirical results showing divergent color processing within and across cultures. It suggests that universalities in color naming and categorization may naturally arise across cultures because color language and color categories primarily reflect culturally modal linguistic mappings, and categories are shaped by universal cognitive constructs and culturally salient features of color. Thus, a shared cultural representation of color based on widely shared cognitive dimensions may be the proper foundation for universalities of color naming and categorization. Across cultures this form of representation may result from convergent responses to similar pressures on color lexicon evolution.

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